Day 6 – Friday 10 January.

By Grant Chapman.

The sun rose a lot later this morning as we started to move in a more westerly direction, the sky only becoming light after 4:00am Zulu (UTC – Universal Time Coordinataire or Greenwich Mean Time) which is 6:00am Bravo of course (SA Time). We had set our watches to UTC time on the second day out of Cape Town as all race correspondence was communicated to us based on UTC and without any means of reference to what time of day or week it was it didn’t really matter to us what time zone we were in. In fact after 6 days at sea most of the crew had no idea what day it was and it was only those that were corresponding with the outside world receiving race updates and the like that knew which day it was.

We had our first sighting of a lone Wandering albatross plying the surface wind effect above the waves without flapping its wings once while we monitored it. The sea was cobalt blue, giving true meaning to the term “blue water sailing”. We hoisted the big purple spinnaker and altered course for 3300M as we needed to get further north to skirt the centre of the high pressure with its low speed winds as it shifted north. We found that we generally sailed more westerly during the night with the white sails goose-winged as the boat surfed the waves at night better with this configuration on a reduced bearing. Not having to constantly hold back the weather helm on the wheel at night if we had the big bag up front gave relief to the helmers who were experiencing tight trapezoidal shoulder muscles after their shift at the wheel when using the spinnaker. Arnica ointment is something that should be in the medical aid box in future. Lorraine baked the best bread of the trip so far which we had with boiled eggs and cheese followed by custard and mixed fruit.

Several schools of flying fish skittered across the waves throughout the day as we crossed their paths, some of them flying as far as 20m at a time and varying in size from tiny things a couple of inches long to bigger fish about 8 inches in length. Apparently they make really poor eating as they are very bony. Those not helming busied themselves down below preparing daily meals and washing up without a formal roster although there were the inevitable chirps about who had done the most to help bake the bread or clean up the galley. It had became very obvious which of the crew were still living at home, based on how long it took one of them to wash the dishes with 30 minutes for the old salts to up to 2 hours for some of the younger generation, especially the chaps.

We received a position report from the race organizers indicating that all of the racing boats had taken the northerly route that we were taking as they were well ahead of us, attempting to finish the race in 12 days, compared to our target of 24 days or less. The report also indicated that the 6 mostly cruising boats in our class were all within a couple of degrees of our position and it was good to see that they were all obviously fairing well. In the late evening a young Atlantic Petrel tried several times to grab one of our squid lures trolling in the wake 30m behind the boat, eventually giving up when it constantly eluded her which was fortunate as it could have been tricky disentangling an irate sea bird with such a large beak. We gybed the sails to achieve our desired course as the wind started to back to the east which was a good thing as it indicated that we were starting to pick up the trade winds. For supper Ashwyn prepared a delicious tuna bake dish with the leftovers of the Skipjack from the previous day with Virgil overseeing operations and Grant giving ingredient and cooking advice from the helm. We continued to receive well wishes from family and friends back home via Mark Jennings and Brian Goemans ,who had been updating everyone in the absence of our satellite e-mail link, and we were all very appreciative of the support. The sun set over a more settled sea in amber skies, the last light producing an amazing display of crepuscular rays filtering through the clouds.